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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420914">A Lack of Self Control</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix'>Prix</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Origins - Awakening</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bittersweet Mostly-PWP, Foreshadowing, Loss of Bodily Autonomy, M/M, Masturbation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Outdoor Sex</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:35:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,825</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420914</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders cannot sleep when he stops to make camp on his way to the coast. He seeks a distraction, and he finds one. </p><p> </p><p>[Or, Anders tries to masturbate. Justice gets involved. It's weird but not all bad.]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(alluded to/past) Anders/Karl Thekla, (past) Anders/Others, Anders/Justice (Dragon Age)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Froday Flash Fiction Little &amp; Monthly Specials 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Lack of Self Control</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, this is kind of weird, but I hope I did the idea... Justice. </p><p>Comments and kudos are welcome! </p><p>This fulfills the "invisible" prompt on my FFFC 100 Prompt Table. [Links TBA]</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anders stares up at the sky. It won’t be long now before he is below deck of some smelly ship or else on his knees on the deck, trying not to vomit while he enjoys the view. Perhaps he will like seafaring more than he thinks he will, but gaining passage to Kirkwall is not a matter of leisure. </p><p>Taking a deep breath of the cool, damp air, Anders tries to keep his wits about him. </p><p>He lies on a thin blanket of cloth and a thick blanket of grass. There are a few trees that dot the field, one close at hand. He set his things against it before finding a place to rest for the night. </p><p>He closes his eyes. He sees the phantom glow of explosions. He hears urgent cries. He remembers his heart break. </p><p>He misses the warmth of a small, fuzzy creature hidden away in the folds of his robes. </p><p>Anders draws a sharp, quick breath. He feels as if he has found air after being submerged underwater. His eyes open wide, and he sees the violet dark above him, pin-pricked with distant stars. His hand grips, finding a little hole in the fabric beneath him. Through it, he feels blades of grass tickling his fingertip. </p><p>Wind sweeps across the field, making a pleasant rustling sound in the nearby leaves. </p><p>He focuses on breathing <i>in</i> and <i>out</i>, <i>in</i> and <i>out</i>. He keeps wriggling his finger through the hole in the blanket, but the rest of his hand relaxes. </p><p>He knows he is not alone here. He will never be alone again, unless Justice chooses to leave him. </p><p>He can’t help but think he wishes Justice had a body of his own. </p><p>It feels like a treacherous thought. He remembers how they’d <i>run away</i>, having left themselves little choice. Even a Right of Conscription could not protect them so long as their shared form could <i>not be trusted</i> in the face of injustice. </p><p>He remembers Kristoff’s face. The man who had once been Kristoff. It wasn’t that pretty to look at, gaunt and drawn and apparently arrested in a state of decay. But he’d gotten used to it, so much that seeing his head separated from his body had made him feel sick and sad and <i>angry</i>. </p><p>Then he had remembered their long conversations, and he had heard Justice’s voice, tickling behind his hear – from the inside, before he had agreed to let him stay. </p><p>Anders swallows. His throat feels dry, so he rolls over onto his side and reaches for some of the water he has carried with him. He takes a few deep swallows and secures the rest. </p><p>Lying back down and studying the sky, he feels a bit better. </p><p>He closes his eyes. The wind blows again. Anders enjoys the freedom and fresh air, but he cannot sleep. </p><p>There is an anxiousness running beneath his skin, through his veins. It makes his body feel warmer from the inside, and it makes his skin speckled with goosebumps. He makes a discontented grumbling noise, for no ears but his own. He is complaining for lack of comfort, for lack of <i>something</i>, and while he could spend the rest of the night wondering exactly what that something is, he would really prefer not to. </p><p>Anders’s hands move before he quite worries about granting them permission. They seek out the skirt of his robe. He bunches it in his hands. He plants his feet against the grass beyond the blanket and lifts his hips from the ground. With a little pull, the robe travels up over his knees and slides gently along his thighs. He keeps tugging until the fabric rests against his stomach, a hand’s span above his hips. </p><p>His skin is colder, but he has an idea of how to warm himself up. </p><p>A shiver runs through him, making his soft abdomen tense into definition. </p><p>The tree branches above him rattle, and he hopes that the cool air won’t make such a pleasant distraction impossible. </p><p>Determined, his right hand reaches the skin just inside his right knee. He flattens his palm and rubs along his inner thigh. His hand drags gently against the grain of the fine hair that grows there. He stops just as he feels the hair thicken, the shape of a tendon rigid beneath his skin. His knees are bent, drawn up a little, his feet resting on their sides against his blanket. </p><p>He trails his hand back toward his knee. For a moment, the wind barely licks at his skin, and the air is clean and nice and smells of <i>green</i>. He almost loses sight of his goal, finding that it is simply <i>nice</i> to feel fresh air against his skin. </p><p>He half-closes his eyes, the lids growing heavier with every exhale. He smooths the hair on his leg only to brush back against it, noting the softness of his own hands and the callouses on his fingertips. The thought that he might drift off into sleep after all crosses his mind, but his hand keeps moving, transferring its warmth into the rest of him. He has already got his cock out, so he might as well see it through. </p><p>His body starts to take notice, warmth trickling down from his chest to his belly to the base of his spine, from the back of his body to the front. He hardens a little. It’s slow-going with nothing but boredom driving him, but he has all the time in the world. </p><p>At least, he has until daylight, he corrects himself. No one seems to be around for as far as he can see, but he does imagine that it might put him in a rather vulnerable position to fall asleep with his robe hiked up. </p><p>He sighs with relief as he takes himself in his hand. He strokes up and down, filling up his grasp as he gets warmer and harder with each heartbeat. He closes his eyes completely, mind paging through his memories and private thoughts for some inspiration. </p><p>He thinks of the softness of a woman’s breast in his hand and the way it hardens at its center. </p><p>He considers the thrill of chasing after another’s desire, coaxing them with whispers and the soft brush of lips against an ear, against a neck. </p><p>He remembers hot breath against the back of his own neck, the mouth clamping down over the tendon extending to his shoulder. He hears himself whimper and clench, and he doesn’t quite know if it is in the past or the present. </p><p>His hand starts to turn gently as he pumps it up and down. He grips the head with more urgency so that it feels as if he pushes through a warm opening each time his hand comes down. </p><p>He sees it in his mind’s eye, almost a perfect copy of a moment in time. He is bracing himself or else reaching back to clutch for his lover desperately. The only thing in front of him is a low, long table, meant for studying. Others are at dinner, but he is hungry for something else. He is starving to be this <i>hungered for</i>. </p><p>He is helpless when he comes undone, spurting seed on anything that is in front of him. It is propelled out of him, his lover’s hips driving him forward. </p><p>He remembers laughing at the smeared ink on a perfectly innocent page, trying to clean up. He remembers not being alone and the rumble of another’s laughter alongside his. </p><p>He holds on to the parts of it that cause him no grief – the parts that made the grief seem to have an end. His hand keeps moving, and he is <i>almost</i> there. </p><p><i>‘Anders.’</i> </p><p>It is a strange sensation. His name comes from nowhere and everywhere, seeming to emanate – if he really concentrates – from the base of his skull. He flinches, startled and almost frightened. </p><p>His eyes shoot open as he whines at the loss of the edge of bliss. He cannot think to mind it until he glances around, pushing himself up upon his free elbow. </p><p>He finally takes another breath when he realizes he has not been discovered. </p><p>He frowns afterward. The voice had been so <i>familiar</i>. He lets himself fall back to the ground with a soft thump at the back of his head. </p><p>“Justice?” he asks, speaking to no one like a madman. “Is that you?” </p><p>His hand is still wrapped around his erection, but it has gone still. His hips want to jerk upward, seeking after the precipice again. He had <i>been there</i>, he wants to explain, but he will not. </p><p><i>‘Anders, I was stirred by a most disturbing sensation.’</i> </p><p>“Disturbing to you, is it?” Anders asks, keeping his voice low but voicing it out loud in spite of all good sense. “Well, you’re going to have to get used to it. This is part of being inside a living, breathing man.” </p><p>He does not know why he snips at Justice quite so impatiently, or if it is all in his imagination after all. </p><p>Wouldn’t that be something? For most of his life, Anders has been trying to escape the heavy stares of templars, some of them with worse intentions than others. Wouldn’t it be something, then, to have a moralizing Chantry sister stuck in his head? </p><p>Anders starts moving his hand again, trying to regain lost ground. He searches for another thought or memory to dwell upon, the previous one too tinged by a stark reality to do him anymore good. </p><p>He lights upon the unfinished conquest of a girl in the tavern in Amaranthine. That uniform had gotten him quite a bit of attention, after the darkspawn incursion had been beaten back enough that the City of Amaranthine was, indeed, a city still and again. </p><p>He thought of the darkened room and her sweet, warm breath. He thought of her hair tangling between his fingers and the way he had been <i>so close</i> to slipping inside her (and not about what had come after). </p><p><i>‘This feeling you dwell upon,’</i> comes Justice’s voice again. Anders makes a sound that is somewhere between a laugh and a whine. He keeps his hand moving, stubbornly. <i>‘The desire to be… inside a person. Is this different from possession?’</i> </p><p>Anders makes another sound – a clearer groan of misery this time. </p><p>“Can this wait until I’m finished?” he complains. </p><p><i>‘I am only trying to understand the nature of this… new partnership,’</i> Justice explains. </p><p>“No. Wanting to fuck someone or be fucked is absolutely nothing like possession. And if it is, it’s extremely temporary,” Anders drones out, hoping that giving him an answer will satisfy him. </p><p>It seems to, and Anders is left with heated silence and a bit of sweat on his skin. He drifts through a few more thoughts – attractive people he had never gotten to know and some he had but had never been to bed with, imagining their faces pressed to his and other parts of his body. </p><p>Finally, he is granted enough peace to reach the edge again. It is a point of no return, the muscles in his shaft clenching, his testicles tight and hot. He keeps moving his hand, the edge of a finger and his thumb creating the perfect boundary for the head to push through and grind against. </p><p>His hips lift themselves off the ground, working with and against his hand, his body finally <i>spilling</i>—</p><p>He is frozen. Not with cold but his muscles cannot move. His hand is gripped tight around his cock and his hips are lifted up off the ground. The strain in his legs aches. The only muscles that move are those he no longer has any control over. He keeps breathing, and he blinks as his seed dribbles over his hand and head without his hand to grant him the satisfaction of <i>release</i>. </p><p>His breath comes hard and deep. He feels the soft echo of horror. It <i>really</i> isn’t that big a deal, but when he is finally <i>granted</i> enough use of his body to move his mouth, he is furious. </p><p>“Oh, Maker damn you!” he cries, too loud, even for being alone in a field. Because he <i>knows</i> he would never have done such a thing to himself. </p><p>There is no response for a long moment, but then he is finally able to lower his hips back down. He lies there, staring at the shiny substance on the skin of his hand and his cock. </p><p><i>‘I do not wish for you to give in to something so dangerous. It could… drive me to madness, and it could corrupt your good heart, Anders.</i> </p><p>Ah, so an answer then. Anders splutters to formulate a response. </p><p>“This is something almost <i>every</i> person has done by a certain age,” he says, still anguished at the frustration that still pools in his groin which now seems hopeless and beyond help. </p><p>Anders lets his head loll to the side, looking at the blades of grass beyond his blanket. He searches for his former appreciation for nature and things like that, but he can’t find it. His heart is still hammering in his chest and right into his ears. He feels strangely defeated and like he might cry. </p><p>He refuses to. </p><p>Sleep alludes him, but he doesn’t have long to try before he is hearing Justice’s voice in his head. It’s strange, and he isn’t sure that it is even possible all the time. Since Justice had <i>joined him</i>, any sense of conversation he has had with him has been mostly in the form of <i>gut feelings</i> which do not seem entirely his own. Compulsions. And sometimes coming to his senses with blood on his hands. </p><p><i>‘It occurs to me that my former host had known such desire.’</i> </p><p>“Imagine that!” Anders says as he looks back up toward the tree branches and the sky. He doesn’t think too deeply about the gaunt, drawn, slowly decaying visage of Kristoff. Seems a shame to. But he does remember the companionship that having Justice <i>around</i> had been. He had known that Justice had been preoccupied with Kristoff’s lingering thoughts and desires, but he had never fully contemplated what it might mean for him. </p><p><i>‘He knew such desire not as madness but as a form of… an expression of… love and affection for his wife.’</i> </p><p>“So they tell me, it goes that way sometimes,” Anders says. It isn’t entirely fair, but he is still frustrated and cross. </p><p>His hand twitches. It is a simple enough movement, involuntary but familiar. He thinks little of it, but a moment later his hand creeps toward his groin. He is still half-hard, but experience has taught him that after the semen is out, the party is over for a while. </p><p>It’s a confusing sensation, and for a moment, he thinks he is under the force of some habit. He tries to tug his hand back to his side. </p><p>His hand moves of its own accord to gently grasp his penis again. </p><p>“Wait,” he says aimlessly. “Justice?” he asks. He manages to push himself up onto the other elbow, but his right hand keeps on moving, slow but sure. </p><p>It is one of the <i>weirdest</i> things he has ever felt or seen. But as his hand wraps around his erection and starts moving again, he finds that it isn’t quite so bad as he had imagined. He isn’t so sensitive, at this moment, that it feels like lightning arcing up through his spine. </p><p>Instead, his eyelids flutter a little. He can see that it is his own hand, but the fact that he is not telling it to move at all makes it feel almost like another’s. Another’s who knows exactly how he has learned to touch himself to get the job done. </p><p>He sighs – giving in. </p><p>“Oh that’s n—not bad,” he says, thinking he might have been able to compliment the effort more wholeheartedly. His skin runs hot, and he thinks he might be feeling just a little bit more shy than before. </p><p><i>‘Your mind is quieter,’</i> Justice’s voice speaks to him, lowly – back of his head, base of his skull, tickling at his hair-tie. </p><p>“You’re doing it for me,” Anders murmurs. </p><p>He feels almost drunk as his hand moves for him. He feels it, but it tingles. It is <i>almost</i> uncomfortable, and if it weren’t for the way the heat was building back up in his groin, driving him to another peak, he thinks he might object. He doesn’t. </p><p>Instead, he slowly moves the arm that Justice has not commandeered and straightens it. He lies flat on his back. His hand grips the blanket beneath it. He lifts his chin, and his neck and upper back arch a bit. He lies back down, gasping. He tries to move his hips, and it is a sluggish movement – at war between two minds – but he is not forbidden it. </p><p>He bites his lower lip and works it between his teeth before he lets it slip free. </p><p>The climb to the cliff that will fling him off into a pleasantly blank void for an instant nears its end. </p><p>He is <i>right there</i>, about to start feeling as though his cock has a heartbeat all its own, spilling more of his seed over his hand and anywhere else it might land. </p><p>Then his hand stops. </p><p>He does not spill over this time, but he grits his teeth and makes a desperate sound through them. </p><p>“Are… Do you <i>mean</i> to torture me?” he demands. There is sweat on his forehead and a strand of his blond hair is sticking to it. He bats it away with his left hand, wishing he could bat his hand at Justice instead. </p><p><i>‘Of course I do not intend torture. It is only… I feared pushing you to the oblivion you sought.’</i> </p><p>Anders thinks about it for a moment. What else can he do? His brown furrows a bit. His breath is still coming faster than usual. He closes his eyes as if that might take him a little closer to wherever Justice is, except in his right hand. </p><p>“The ‘oblivion’ only lasts for a few seconds. And it’s… a nice thing. It’s not going to turn me into a monster or kill me. What <i>might</i> do those things is if you don’t let me come,” he says. The words spill out without any humility, but the last statement surprises Anders with the way it makes his cock twitch. </p><p>He starts to reach for himself, cautiously. His right hand is balled into a fist around himself, gripping too tightly to let himself free. Instead, he brushes his fingers lightly against his balls. He feels himself breathe in sharply, and for a moment his chest has that same tingling feeling that is running down his right arm. He exhales, and his chest feels almost normal again, pounding like a war-drum as it is. </p><p>Anders continues to brush his fingers across his testicles, gentle against the soft skin that covers them. </p><p>It coaxes his right had into movement, though he still can’t control the pace. </p><p>“Thank you,” he breathes. “Ah, thank you, thank you...” </p><p>It seems insane to thank <i>his own hand</i>, but he knows <i>whom</i> he is thanking after all. </p><p>It is nice, not having to think about keeping the right rhythm with his hand. Once the fear leaves him, he can focus on his left hand alone. It trails up from his testicles along his abdomen until he reaches the fabric of his robes, bunched around his waist. He lets them drag back down again to his hip, soothing himself with a faint tickle that feels all his own. </p><p>“Oh, fuck me,” he begs in a hoarse groan. </p><p><i>‘Am I…?’</i> </p><p>“Don’t let go until you do,” Anders interrupts, or he thinks he does. Is that even possible? </p><p>Whether it is or whether it isn’t, his right hand moves dutifully until he reaches the edge again. Sounds peal from his throat – groans and whimpers and something that is almost a sob before he begs, fearfully. </p><p>“Please don’t stop.” </p><p><i>‘I feel...’</i> </p><p>“It’s okay. I want you to feel it, too. You’re… part of me. Inside of me. Whatever,” Anders says, each sentence a gasp. </p><p>The sound his right hand makes as it moves against his skin and catches on the little bit that leaks makes Anders drunker than before. </p><p>Finally, his hips jolt up, and he thinks neither he nor Justice have any control of them as they thrust freely, seeking release and finding it. There is less semen than there would have been otherwise, but Anders is not complaining with the rush of sensation – throbbing heat, and blank, thoughtless contentment – that comes with it. </p><p>Collapsed against the blanket, Anders tries to flex his fingers on both hands. He finds that he can and that Justice has finally let him go. His eyelids are heavy once more, and he grunts softly as he finds the strength to lift his trembling thighs and hips up to lower his robes down. </p><p>He doesn’t open his eyes when he wonders if he is alone again. </p><p>Had he been with <i>anyone else</i> he could have felt their weight beside or over him. Beneath him, even. Here, he feels the night air, but there is no one to reach for, no one to touch. </p><p>He knows that Justice has not <i>left him</i>. There would be nowhere to go. And yet, he wonders if he has slipped beyond his reach – into the Fade or else into the depths of his soul, and Anders does not know which. </p><p>“Did you feel it, too?” he asks. He does not expect an answer. He turns onto his side and rolls to his left, tugging blanket along with him to shelter himself from the wind. He half-imagines that the thin fabric is a strong arm around him. </p><p><i>‘This… ‘feeling’ I felt…’</i> Anders hears. He is so relieved to get an answer that he sighs, hearing some of his bones seem to rattle back into place as he settles in to sleep. <i>‘I… believe it is called ‘desire.’’</i> </p><p>Anders snorts softly, almost a laugh. He knows that Justice is fearful of desire, but he dismisses the thought. He is even comforted by it. </p><p>“Yes, well. Not all desire is bad,” he assures him. “Part of what makes the world work.” </p><p>Another long span of silence lets Anders drift, closer and closer to the Fade, he supposes. He hears it from a greater distance than inside his own skull when Justice answers, but he thinks he is near him all the same. </p><p><i>‘I am… to trust you… my friend. I must, after all.’</i> </p><p>Anders is smiling as he starts to dream. His lips barely move and only make a childish sort of murmur, but he knows they both hear his words loud and clear. </p><p>“Oh, yeah. Trust me all you want.”</p>
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